Couch Guitar Straps

No.  I haven't taken up the guitar again.  These guys sort of make me wish I could stand the calloused fingertips, though.  Their products are awesome.

I first found them on Etsy.  You can get to their shop here.  I was intrigued by the materials they use.  As you can see to the left, they recycle things, largely automotive textiles, in really fabulous and useful ways.  These are old seatbelts.  Isn't it amazing how lovely they are?

What took my fancy, though, was the range of products they make from automotive vinyl.  They take deadstock vinyl and other fabrics, originally intended to reupholster car and truck seats, and create straps, electronic gadget cases, wallets, passport covers, even messenger bags.  When seen in a different conformation than big swathes of seat, the intricate detail of these old fabrics really stands out.

The first thing I purchased was a Kindle cover.  It's made from seat covering from a 1960s GMC truck.  The bright red is one of my favorite colors, and I love that it is made from something vintage.  Even though the one on Etsy was sized for the Kindle Fire, Couch made a custom version for my Kindle Paperwhite at no extra charge. It is perfect for running around as it adds no extra bulk whatsoever to the Kindle while providing protection.  Also, I mean, look at the thing.  It's gorgeous....

I also found a camera strap made from deadstock for a Volkswagen Beetle.  I have been using it now for a couple of months, and every time I take my camera out of its case, it makes me smile.  The red (see a theme here?) color and the fact that it came out of one of the world's happiest cars just thrills me.  I can't wait to use it in Italy.

For my annual "month of senseless indulgences," I decided to get one of their other pieces that I had been ogling in my Etsy favorites for a long time.  Couch makes several styles of wallets.  I needed one that was small and simple to fit in my larger "string purse"  This one was perfect.  It was also perfect because it's made from 1960s Chrysler vinyl in a lovely emerald green.  It came today, and I cleaned out the pockets of my string purse into it.  It could not be more perfect.  It slips down into the pocket with my checkbook taking up almost no more space than the bunched-up cards did alone.  I now know exactly how much cash I have on-hand because it's not all wadded up in the change pouch like it has been.  Organization and art triumph.

The philosophy behind Couch is admirable.  They make everything themselves, and the pride they take in their products is clear.  Things are hand-stamped, strong-sewn, screen-printed by them.  They use their own products, and professional musicians are also fond of them.  They ship fast, communicate well and with great friendliness.  Heck, they even sent a free pick holder with the wallet.  (I am going to give it to one of my guitar-playing friends.)

I like the fact that they are taking the common, something designed to cover a cushion for your backside, and making it extraordinary.  It is meaningful to me also that they are giving these things a second life.  To me, things that have already had one purpose and find or are given another are just inherently richer, infinitely preferable.  I know I am going to enjoy these items and the history of them for a long time to come.

A Mobile Observation

What does it say about me that it annoys me when radio stations mute minor vulgarities in their songs? I'm listening to Pink Floyd's "Money," and when it got to the "goodie good bullshit" line, they bleeped it. If that word offends you so very much, maybe you should not listen to the song. I find this sort of thing hypocritical and corrosive to the original intent of the artist. Even if they bleep it, we all know what was meant, effectively hearing it in our heads. What's the point?

Actually, Quite-a-Lot

Quite a lot has happened since I wrote last.  I've sat down with the computer several times, but each has wound up involved with other things than coming here.  I am taking a moment now to try to catch up.

I got a call yesterday saying that I'd been nominated to be the Star of the Week, a community member profiled and highlighted in our local newspaper.  I was floored.  I do not think of myself as overly interesting.  I was honored, though.  I saw the completed interview in today's paper.  It was strange to see myself there, picture and all, but nice, too.  I don't think I came off sounding like an idiot.

I was also informed that I have been chosen by one of students for a special kind of recognition.  It was totally unexpected, but I am so grateful for what it represents.  To be chosen by one's students as worthy is probably the highest honor and vote of confidence a teacher can hope for.  Once I am sure all of it is official and not-a-secret, I'll talk more about this.  Right now, I've said about as much as I need to.

I found out about and have been working on an application for a two-week summer trip to Japan to  collaborate and exchange information with teachers there and with other teachers from around the States.  I finished the application last night, and now all that's left is the waiting.

I'm also waiting to hear about the AP Reading this summer.  I think it's time or past time for the first round of notifications to come out (I can't find my letter), so I might not have been selected this time.  I am worried that missing last year for TGC has hurt me in the selection process.  Only time will tell.

Regardless of all the things still up in the air and while tomorrow might be a hammer right between the eyes, I have a good, good feeling about 2013.  Thirteen, for a variety of reasons, has always been lucky for me.  Maybe this whole year will be.

A Letter from Myself

(this arrived in the mail today.  we wrote letters to ourselves on the last day of the TGC Brazil trip as a final reflection.  although I knew it was coming, opening it still came as a poignant moment.)

__________

23 June 2012

Dear You,

Please remember what you've learned and seen here.  Even on the days when things get terrible, appreciate all you have.

Don't forget the students you've met.  Don't forget David Campista and their great generosity.  Take it with you and remember that beauty.

Remember the monkey.  Wild things can be gentle, too, when approached with the appropriate attitude.  This is good classroom advice.

Remember the joy of being alone.  Remember the joy of being with others.

It's okay to order the caipirinha.

It's okay to go back to the hotel if your head hurts, too.

Take a minute and look back over the pictures.  Watch the light go through the crystal ball.  And, finally, if you are not as happy right now as you were at every moment in Brazil....get your ass back there.

ME

All the Etsy Things

It struck me today as I was sitting on a steel-pad table by a rural creek just how many thing I use constantly and really love have come from Etsy.  There were the red case for my Kindle and the red strap on my Nikon, both made by Couch Straps from deadstock automotive vinyl.  There was the small sandwich wrap by Yulco I use so I don't have to put a PB&J in a sandwich bag and wastefully throw the bag away after.  There was the red martingale collar from Mod Dog around Chewie's snow-white throat, allowing him comfort and me control if needed.  Even the tiny silver studs with their kanji symbols for peace and luck on them I was wearing in my second set of piercings had come from someone there, Cherry Creek Jewelry.

I know Etsy receives criticism.  Maybe some of it comes rightly.  I haven't researched stuff enough to know.  I just know that since I started shopping there, I have access to things I love.  I like my stuff to be either a) old or b) classic/unique and always c) well-made.  Etsy shops, the ones I frequent, anyway, meet all those requirements.  There are all these incredibly talented people out there who make exactly the right thing when I'm looking for it, something my style, my size, my philosophy, and without this site, I'd never know about it.

My tastes are not what could be called "common" for this area.  While we have some mightily awesome junktiques that I adore, finding makers for the type of art and the style of personal items such as phone cases, jewelry, etc. I want is problematic unless I go to a larger place.  The beauty of Etsy is that I don't have to go anywhere.  It comes to me.

Even as my tastes and little manias change, Etsy remains able to satisfy them.  If I'm on a "kick" with a particular topic, set of characters, or item, I can find things on Etsy that fulfill that desire reasonably.  I can also find new interests, even new project ideas for myself, by looking there.

The last thing about using Etsy that I appreciate is the general friendliness of the craftspeople.  I've never run into anyone there who wasn't willing to adapt or create a custom order.  I have ordered from some of them several times, and they actually remember that I was a customer.  It's nice.  I also like the fact that so many shops offer discounts to repeat buyers.  In a world where often you go into a shop and are made by lack of service or outright rudeness of the staff to feel that you're doing them a disservice by spending your money there, being acknowledged and appreciated is a fairly novel change.

I've also almost never run across anyone there whose quality wasn't even more than advertised.  I have some pieces, including my long-desired and much-loved green Leonard messenger bag from New Duds, that I know I will have for a very long time.  I will probably wear out before it does.  In a world of use-and-toss or buy-knowing-you'll-have-to-buy-again-soon, it's refreshing to see durability and quality accompanying beauty.

I didn't mean for this to become an Etsy hymn, but really, I don't mind that it did.  I get far too much enjoyment from the site not to have said something good of it.  While not everyone may agree with me about its virtues, for me, it is the perfect "shop."

Wonderful Things

(a list)

• Watching my Pyrenees run, frolic, and splash wildly in the creek.
• Having said Pyrenees warm and dry and leaning on me as we drive down dirt roads.
• Driving down red dirt roads.
• Having just enough coffee left to make a pot.
• Watching a new coffee maker produce said coffee.
• Drinking that coffee from a new Fiestaware jumbo cup.
• Sitting in sunlight streaming through the window.
• Knowing that if I want to, I can go take a nap.
• Knowing that if I do go take a nap, four-hundred-and-eighty-seven cats and dogs will pile up in the bed to nap, too.
• Listening to the rumbling purr of a small, plump, striped cat.
• Having a vehicle that stops when the brakes are pressed.  (Mine currently does not do this.)
• Driving a big, brown, battered farm truck with enough pulling power to move a small moon.
• Hearing the quiet chiming of agate windchimes and thinking of Brazil.

I think I hear a nap calling me.  It's been peaceful today.  I hope yours has been as well.

Snow Day

Yesterday before we left school, all the talk was of the incoming winter storm.  Preparations were made in case we needed to start school late.  Phone chains were checked.  Reminders were given to keep everything in the building safe.

I have to admit I didn't really expect any snow.  Every year, snow is predicted, and every year, the hearts of local children are crushed when we get four flakes or none at all.  Their bright little eyes glimmer with the thoughts of waist-high drifts which prevent the school buses from running, but the reality of living this far South is that if we get enough to cover the ground fully, we've had a heck of a storm.

I woke up about 4:30 as usual, my never-ending fear of oversleeping my alarm kicking in, and I wondered if it were snowing, but not enough to get up from my warm cocoon, dislodge cats, and go see.  Thirty minutes later, the alarm sounded, and I dragged myself out of bed and started the wait for notification.

District told us they'd notify us by 5:30 if we were going to try a late-start day.  At about 5:15, my phone started chiming.  The person above me on my phone tree, a person in my department I depend upon to get news, the actual email and call from the CO all told me I could go back to bed.  Late start was a reality.  I rolled over with great happiness.

About thirty minutes later, everything went off again.  School was officially called off for today.  Snow day protocol was in place.  I got up, looked out the window, and even in the dim light, I could see white everywhere.  Against all probability, we had snow.  I have to admit, I was glad to have been wrong.

I slept late, got up, took the dogs out, and got wet from the thick clumpy snow still falling.  Roux went out and came in quickly.  Chewie absolutely frolicked.  He loved the snow.  He ran in huge circles, kicking up mud and snow everywhere.  He dove face-first into the tiny drifts.  I laughed and laughed, and I realized as I did it that it was the first time I had really laughed in days.

I took some pictures, came in to get what I needed to fill all the birdfeeders.  When I went back out carrying the twenty-pound sack of birdseed, Roux slipped out with me, and she and Chewie took off before I could navigate the slick steps and get her collar.  Memories of the last time she ran off played back almost immediately.  Those 22 hours where I was waiting for Chewie and her to come home were some of the longest of my life.

I waited for several hours to see if they'd come back on their own before I grabbed leashes, bundled myself into forty layers and a purple hat, and headed after them.  I walked through the woods road to the far pasture calling their names.  I'm sure if the hunters who hang out across the road were there today, they got very tired of it.  As a teacher, I can be exceptionally loud when I need to be.  I made it all the way to the line of trees at the edge of that pasture and still, no dogs.

I stood and I called over and over, and just when I was thinking that I would have to give up and just go home, I saw a flicker of movement in the trees and heard the distant and longed-for jingling of collar tags.  Roux appeared and disappeared behind the trunks of the pines.  Then Chewie burst out of the woods in a blur of dirty wet white.  I captured him and put him on the leash, and we chased Roux down, leashed her, and we all went home.

I took the time to make breakfast, fought my ridiculous, useless coffee pot and managed to eke out a cup with it, got on Amazon and bought a new coffee pot so I can have the exquisite pleasure of destroying the one I have with a hammer, did some online research and browsing, and was as useless as possible.  I decided to watch Friends, and it has turned into a marathon.  It's been fabulous.

Roux has been sleeping all afternoon.  Chewie is mostly wiped out, too.  As I look at them, all I can think of is how grateful I am that they came when called.  If the weather hadn't been as nasty as it was, I'm not sure if that would have been the case.  Maybe we all got a chance to do some things today we don't normally do, and we all got it out of our various systems.  Tomorrow will be a return to what passes for normality around here.  I guess all good things, even the unexpected ones, must come to an end.

Fede Gimmel

This is a fede gimmel or gimmal ring.  These rings are made of two, or as in the case of this one, three rings that swivel open.  The hands open, and there is a heart inside.  You can see an example of an opened one below.  It's a different ring, but I think you can get the idea.  These were used as men's wedding rings or women's engagement/betrothal rings during the Victorian period.  (By the way...I like the word "betrothed."  If I ever get to that point, I'd like to be "betrothed" instead of "engaged." Betrothed.  Yeah.)

I love this.  To me, it's a fascinating variation on the Claddagh.  The same symbolism of eternal unity and companionship is there.  The heart is hidden, a private thing, on this ring, but it's lovely.  The detailed hands, one masculine with its shirt sleeve, and one feminine with its ruffle, are charming.  I have seen lots of different types of old jewelry, but so much of it is intended for women.  The fact that this has so much detail and could be worn by men, too, delights me.

If I were getting married, that distant misty if, then I think this would be a cool band for that imaginary husband of mine to have.  I would hope he'd be interested in it.  I don't know.  Maybe it's too fancy for a modern guy.  I just adore the history, the symbolism, and the function of it.  I'd like to think Imaginary Husband would look down at his ring, think of us together, and smile.  Isn't that the purpose of those things, after all?

Oh, and if you want the ultra-awesome one from the top picture, I found it here.

My Ring

From this Etsy listing by Meg:


"Etched into a genuine, natural, beautiful deep purple amethyst stone is a gilt flower and in the center of that lovely painted flower is a Salanger or 'rough cut' diamond (pre-dates the rose cut)

These rings, known as Rose of Sharon, were very popular in the Mid Victorian Era. They were used as love tokens, sometimes betrothal rings....or just as a romantic gift. It was a symbol of unfailing love.

In the Victorian Era, the language of flowers was as important to people as being "well dressed." For example, the recognizable scent of a particular flower, plant or perhaps a scented handkerchief sent its own unique message. Roses symbolized love, but even different colors meant different things."
_________________________________________________

When I was in my first year of college, I went to one of the first antique malls to be opened downtown.  Part of the sprawling space was a venerable jewelry store, one of those institutions that had been in town forever and was now a part of this larger enterprise.  In addition to the contemporary pieces they had an entire case of estate pieces.  

I looked down into the case idly, and among the lockets and diamonds there was a ring with a giant, glorious, dark purple amethyst.  It was near my birthday, and amethyst is my birthstone.  I dithered, knowing it would be beyond my slim budget, but I tried it on.  My mom was with me, and as we looked at it, she told me that I should get it.  My Granny wanted to get me something for my birthday, and Mom said that she and Dad would also chip in.  I put the first payment on it that day.

It's been on my hand every day.  I always wondered about the carving in the middle.  Was it a violet to accompany the February birth month?  Was it a tulip?  It sort of looks like one.  Was it a rose?  I didn't know.  Not knowing didn't make me love the ring, which I had come to see as a symbol of my united family, any less.  

Today, I found this ring on Etsy.  It's so much like mine that the two have to be sisters.  The cut is the same.  The setting is a little less elaborate than mine, but even the design is similar.  The I finally have answers to my questions.  As always with things with a past, knowing what it really is makes it even better.  Every time I look at it, I can know that it represents everlasting love.  Even though it wasn't a romantic gift, it is totally fitting. 

With Apologies to the Wilburys

Been stuck in airports, terrorized
Sent to meetings, hypnotized
Overexposed, commercialized
Handle me with care

I'm so tired of being lonely
I still have some love to give
Won't you show me that you really care

~ "Handle With Care" - The Travelling Wilburys
_____________________________________

I've been on a massive Wilburys kick lately.  I've been listening to the big double album practically non-stop for about a week.  Today, I relented somewhat and let Genius make me a mix from one of the songs.  I freaking love the Genius feature on iTunes.  Most of the time, the mixes it comes up with make me much happier than if I'd tried to do it myself.  It's like a little surprise gift every time I click it.

Anyway.

That's not really what I was going to write about.  Maybe it's as good a topic as any.  The continuing rain seems to be blotting out my will to do anything other than slog through the day, float home, and fall down.  Snow is rumored for tonight, but, quite frankly, I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm just tired.  And maybe all I really need is a day where I can see that blue sky.  Maybe it's something far more profound.

Something made me realize today that my birthday is coming up soon.  It comes in on sneaky little cat feet when I'm too busy to pay attention, and then suddenly, BOOM, there it is dancing on my head.  I can't scrape up even the tiniest little bit of enthusiasm for it.  I need to be planning something good, but mostly, I'm just thinking, "37.  Whooptedoo."

There's also the fact that I have no idea what I'd plan.  The actual day is in the middle of a week this time.  I will probably be driving to a city two hours to the north to pick up a carload of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for a fundraiser we're trying to do at school that night since our tentative delivery day is Valentine's Day.  Since I'm in charge of it, I get to do the driving.

I could make a list, I guess, of things I'm going to do as 37 comes, but what belongs on that list?  Maybe a midlife crisis complete with a sports car (okay, yes.  I want one of those for reasons that are not midlifecrisisy.), a twenty-something boyfriend with "an old soul," vast swathes of leopard print, too much alcohol, and not quite enough sense?  Maybe a declaration that this is going to be the start of the year in which I really, truly, finally...  what?  How do I end that sentence? Write the story?  Get the tattoo?  Go back to Brazil/Japan/England?  Learn to play the banjo?  Make another stained glass window?  Finally get all these repairs done on the house?  Really get control of my camera?  Write some poetry that isn't poo-ish? Have electricity or water run to our country shack?   Buy a kiln?  There are so many things hovering in the wings, waiting for me to decide if I'm ever going to do them or not.  The possibles are meeting the actuals, though, and they're not coming off so well in that clash.

I'm just tired.  I'm not afraid of the upcoming birthday.  It doesn't distress me.  It just feels like another one of those things I'll have to take on and deal with, one more stone into the big sack of them I drag around on my back.  That, I guess, is why the lyrics of "Handle With Care" strike such a massive chord with me right now.  I know how they feel.  It is practically my very own personal theme song.

God.

I need some sunshine really badly.

Rereading Harry Dresden

A cop, a wizard, the king of the goblins, and Santa Claus go on a hunting trip.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. ~derekisanerd on Tumblr
______________________________

When the break began, I ripped through Cold Days, the latest installment of the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher.  As I read it, I realized there were SCORES of things I dimly remembered.  Anytime a series has 14 books in it, I suppose it's natural that the first ones are fuzzy, especially since these have come out about one a year for the last 13 years.  I decided when I finished that this would be a good time to go back and see what I had forgotten about one of my favorite characters.


Craploads, apparently.



It took me most of the break, and then life intervened as it so often does, and I didn't quite make it through all 14 again before school started back.  I just finished the reread of the one that started it all off, Cold Days, this afternoon.  My initial reaction to this readathon was a genuine appreciation of Butcher's forethought as a writer.

He's a tricksy beast.  Rereading, meaning I knew where the characters were headed this time, I could see that he's been weaving some of these things together now for a very, very long time.  Some of the books were stronger than others, but all of them moved the character forward.  Rereading them all together, I saw certain themes and patterns emerge that having to process the story in bits and drabs over the course of YEARS had gotten a bit lost.  I saw things that I feel are foreshadowing of what's coming next.  It makes me look forward to the new one even though I know I've got about eight months (probably) to wait.

I also have a deeper love of Harry.  He might be one of my favorite characters ever.  The thing that endears him so to me is that he knows he is deeply flawed.  He's got a dark side that makes Darth Vader seem gentle and caring.  And yet, even when it costs him everything, even when letting that darkness out would save him pain and suffering, he keeps finding the strength to rein it in.  He is constantly willing to take the bullet if it means somebody else won't have to feel the pain.  And yeah, he's a little blind to certain things, exceptionally confused about women, and wizard-arrogant, too.  If I were going into some kind of fantasy-world fight, though, I'd want him by my side (or maybe out in front of me).  If I were hanging out in my living room on a Friday night, he's also a literary figure I wouldn't mind having crash on my couches and MST3K a film.  He manages to give a pretty good feeling for the good and bad of what it's like when a person who suddenly finds themselves becoming larger than life.

I'm on to other books and new territory now, but I ought to do things like that more often.  There are certain books I reread almost every year, like sitting down with an old friend and catching up on what's changed over a cup of coffee.  I don't think I can do all of Dresden that way again each year, but there are other series and singles that I've read before, think I remember all of, and probably need to revisit.

Yeah.  And I'll find time for all that sometime after the fifth of Never.  Why isn't there a job somewhere that lets me get paid to read?

Cool Hand Luke (revisited)

"Cool Hand Luke, hell.  He's a natural-born worldshaker."  ~ Dragline, Cool Hand Luke

I just watched Cool Hand Luke again, and a couple of scenes really struck me this time.

The first was when Luke is out in the yard fighting Dragline.  He keeps getting knocked down, is broken and bloody, but he continues to stand up even though he knows Dragline is not going to stop hitting him, isn't going to be allowed to stop hitting him.  Everybody including Dragline keeps telling him to stay down, but he refuses.

The second scene happens just before they bring Luke back the second time and force him to dig and refill a ditch until he breaks.  He stumbles in to eat, and the dog guy who hates him because of what happened to one of the bloodhounds starts giving him problems in the form of a huge plate of rice which Luke must eat or go back to "the box" again.  Luke starts trying to eat it, and finally, he just puts his spoon down and stares at it dully.  You can see it on every line of his face that he knows he's headed back to what is becoming his own personal hell.  Everyone is quiet, and then suddenly, one of the men gets up, puts away his own empty plate, and as he heads for the door, he takes a huge spoonful of rice off Luke's plate and eats it.  No comment.  Just scoop, chew, swallow, and gone.  Then another does the same.  And another.  And another.  The scene fades out with more than half of the rice already gone and other spoons dipping in, with everybody helping to take some of his burden on themselves.

The last was near the end, after Luke runs for the last time and winds up in the church.  The expression on his face as he's put into the car is the final image we see of him.  (Deliberately vague to avoid spoilers.)  That same small smile has been on his lips so many times during the key events of the story.

Luke, the purposeless, the drifter, the lost, the broken, became something so much larger than just himself.  He becomes a legend, a hero, a source of hope for the men of the chain gang.  He was deeply uncomfortable with the role he found closing in on him, even tried to escape.  When he ran from the prison, he was running from these expectations as much as he was running from the physical walls and chains.  He could feel the need those men had for a rebel, someone stronger than the brutal men who were in charge of their lives.  They needed someone who could show in his every action and word that freedom was something one carried inside them, not something that was dependent on location and situation.  Ultimately, he accepts this, and he is redeemed by redeeming them.

The cost, of course, is proportionate to the gain....

It's not a film I watch often, but sometimes I just need to see it.  It reminds me of several things.  First, maybe the best thing, the most important thing, we can do is give somebody else hope.  Second, even if one ultimately loses, there is a kind of victory in refusing to give in.  Third, and honestly, not as happily, everybody has a breaking point.  No matter how strong their conviction, at some point and under the right stress, everybody will snap.  Fourth, breaking doesn't have to be the end of the story.  There can be something after the shattering of the soul if you're strong enough to scrape together all the shards and reassemble them into something like the original.

Maybe this was the best of all possible films for me to see right now.  I think I needed to remember some of these things.

Januaryness

It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.  ~Virgil


In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
__________________

The holidays are over, their glitter and bright lights gone.  The days are short, the nights are cold, and it won't stop raining.  I hate January.  There's nothing good in January.  It is a despicable month.  It gets a lot of press as a "new beginning," but underneath that thin gilt veneer is a rusted-out base metal that is a lot closer to the truth of things.

Because of the pay schedule I'm on, my last check came the 16th of December, and I won't see another dime until January 30th.  I am scrimping and saving, but my money is already almost gone, and the January bills are rolling in, piling up, making me sick as I try to figure out how to take care of them.

The ground outside is sodden.  Even on high ground, when I step through my yard to walk my dogs, that uneasy softness shifts and slides.  The sky is perpetually grey, dull, just like I feel.  When there is sunshine, it is almost an unbearable but wonderful brightness, like something that I heard about it a story once but stopped believing was real long ago.

The dark, bleak nothing wraps its fist around my heart, and as I look around me, everything I see is colored by it.  Maybe it's more right to say that the color is leeched away by it.  In any case, everything I see makes me sad and filled with discontent.

The city I live and work in has nothing, does nothing, it seems except produce coffins in which to lay to rest my students and former students.  Former gains disappear.  Bright spots and efforts fail and disappear.  Friends in other places tell me of things that they get to do, and the dismal cloud chokes me hard.

My dreams are bad.  People die.  Things are lost.  Situations that are unwinnable are constant.  There's never a moment of peace.  I wake up tired.

My head hurts all the time.  My stomach is constantly upset.  I don't know what to do or how to stop it.  Maybe it's something I'm eating or not eating.  Maybe it's just stress.

I would run away, but there is nowhere to run to.  I would dream of something better, but I'm fresh out of silly notions with which to distract myself.  I would immerse myself in some hobby, but they all either need money or some motivation that I can't seem to scrape up at the present.

And maybe I'll be all better tomorrow.  I can certainly hope so.  I just have a feeling that this will be with me until January is gone.

Farewell 2012

You've been a mixture of things, 2012.  However, mostly you were good to me.  I appreciate that. Some of those who went before you just kicked me down as many stairs as they could and kept walking.

Opportunities presented themselves that I never thought possible.  During your brief time here, I got to go to England, Ireland, and Brazil.  Three stamps in Ye Olde Passport are not shabby for any set of 365 days.  I got to fulfill a long-standing dream with Brazil, got to revisit places that I love in England and Ireland.  In both places, I met people unexpectedly who became wonderful.

As you were passing through, you also saw the change from a Topamaxed me to the unTopamaxed me.  That's something none of your family have seen for five years or so.  I am praying your successor doesn't get to see the reverse process.

Not all of you was good, though.  While you were here, my uncle left us.  While you were here, it seemed that violence reigns supreme.

Only minutes remain before the beginning of the new.  It's time to listen to the wind in the windchimes and the blasts of redneck fireworks sweeping away the bits of you that remain.  If it all goes in the scales that the Egyptians believed would weigh the heart at the end of life, though, if this is the final moment to shift through and evaluate, then on the whole, I'm going to have to say there's more light than dark in you.  I am hoping that you represent a turning point instead of the slight peak before the rollercoaster decline.  Only what comes after you will tell us.

And It Still Gets Me....

I just finished a two-day rewatch of the Lord of the Rings films, and I think as the last credits are rolling, I might be able to stop crying now.

Every time.  Every. Time.

Some of the tears are happy; some are not.  However, as Gandalf says at the end of Return of the King, "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

So many different parts of these call out the strong emotion.  There are the tremendous acts in battle, the moments when the great leaders take their forces out against overwhelming odds and the best of courage can be seen.  There are the small moments, too, when an individual makes a choice, makes a difference.  There are victories over self and others; there are deaths and returns.  There are reunions and partings.  It would be almost impossible for me to make a list of every scene that moves me.

Each of the major characters is something we all wish we had.  Aragorn is the strong and trustworthy leader.  He is reluctant at first, but once he becomes committed, he refuses all obstacles.  Legolas and Gimli are true friends, loyal no matter what comes. Merry and Pippin show that everybody has the ability to grow up and put away silliness in order to "make good" of himself.   Frodo is the one who will sacrifice himself for a great cause even though he sees no special ability in himself.  Sam is the one who helps the one who is heavy-burdened when that one cannot help himself.  Gandalf is the source of wisdom who is wise enough to know that all too often the path has to be discovered step-by-stumbling-in-the-darkness-step by those who are walking it.

I think every person has a character with whom they identify.  Mine has always been Eowyn.  She always wants to do more than has been "ordained" for her.  She feels that she should be choosing her own path, defining herself and following the actions that she understands to be necessary instead of conforming to something that does not fit her, even if that conformity would give something like safety.  It is all summed up nicely in this exchange between Aragorn and her, which made it into the film pretty much unchanged:


ARAGORN: What do you fear, lady?

EOWYN: A cage. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.

I am mostly afraid of the same thing.  There is so much, so very much to see, to do.  It is hard, though, to get out of the cage.  It is hard for me, like it was for her, to know where sane balance ends and the bars begin.

Look what happens, though, because she does leave the cage! I will always love Tolkien for stealing that bit from myth, that the Witch King falls only because she dares to follow her own ideas about how her life should be lived.  Sure, she winds up in love with Aragorn and that does not work out for her (yes.  I am aware that this pattern of useless dreams of guys who are already in love with the "elf chick" is also me.  so you can just shut up.), but she is a heroine in her own right.

I don't watch the LotR movies often, but I wanted to see them all back-to-back (or as reasonably close together as that can be done and a person get some sleep) because I realized that it had been a long, long time since I'd seen more than five minutes of them as I was flipping past a marathon on cable TV.  The beauty, the grandeur, the wonder of the whole story and the whole world Tolkien created still gets to me.  From the Ents to the Nazgul, from Moria to Gondor, from the beginning to the end, I don't think there could ever be a time when it was stale or "old-hat."  There is always some encouragement to be found, some new lesson to take away, some new facet of its loveliness to enjoy.  How marvelous.  How reassuring.

A Little Helpful Advice

(a read-between-the-lines-tongue-in-cheek-list-story)

• When trying to shoot an object, it's often good to take many shots of it from various angles.  Try close-up shots as well as framing more of the subject.  You can always crop down, but you can't add stuff around the edges.
• Late afternoon light is highly appealing for shooting.  It makes interesting shadows and has that dreamlike golden quality to it.
• Places of unexpected beauty are tucked away even in the most ruthlessly functional locations.  Always wear good shoes when shooting just in case you need to do a little walking on uneven ground to get in to where the shot is.
• It is not easy to walk fast on crossties.
• If and when that little instinctive voice whispers in your head that it's time to get off the train tracks and out of the woods, then it is indeed time to get off the train tracks and out of the woods.
• Kansas City Southern trains have rather intimidating black locomotives.  Sometimes four or five of them.

• Despite what you may believe to be true, by the time you can actually see a train coming around the bend and hear its whistle, your proverbial goose is cooked.  They move incredibly fast.
• The amount of wind created by a passing KCS train is enough to move an adult woman back a step or so.
• And finally.....
• Apparently, I need a FULL-TIME KEEPER whose only job is to keep me alive when I go out taking pictures.  Any takers? 

The Comfort of Dogs

Since I put up my last two trivial posts, I got news that distressed me.  I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say I am sad and full of frustration.  Despair on the day after Christmas.  How lovely.

And then Chewie came over and flopped his great big head over on me.  He's not the most patient of dogs, still being a puppy mostly.  He'd rather be slapping Roux with one of his outsized paws in hopes of getting a nip-and-run reaction than being held like the giant white teddy bear he mostly is. Tonight, though, when I started crying, he got down from his leather chair and sat by me for a long time with his head against my heart and just let me pet him.  Roux occasionally would shove him out of the way and do exactly the same thing for a time.  Then they'd swap.

Whenever I have a migraine, Roux always comes and gets in the bed with me when allowed, warm and still, not asking for attention, just helping to hold me in this world when the headache is trying to spin me away.

I have no doubt that they are sensitive to moods.  What never ceases to amaze me is that they can be such a source of comfort and ease just by their simple presence.  It is almost as though their gentle fur and warmth somehow soaks up whatever is wrong and makes it dissipate.

There is a lot to be said for having dogs around when you feel bad.

Another Milestone

I also think it's worth mentioning briefly that the last post I did was my 1600 post.  I cannot believe that I have had 1600 things to say.  Maybe I shouldn't have?  (And you may heartily agree with that, too, depending on how often you read here.)  It will undoubtedly be a long time before I hit 2000, but I have at least reached the same number of posts as the year in which Shakespeare started working on Hamlet.  (See?  I can get him in ANYWHERE, whether it seems he's germane to the conversation or not.  Hamlet.  Relevant to EVERYTHING.)

Yeah.

Back to my books.

Suspended Animation

Today disappeared almost before I knew it was really here.  

I woke a million times last night listening to rain pound the house, or, more eerily, to wind singing through the still-leafy limbs of the great live oak outside my bedroom window near dawn.  I could hear the whole house shudder, hunkering down under ridiculously strong straight-line gusts.  I kept hearing pops and snaps, and I just knew that when I got up this morning, I was going to have a yard full of tree pieces.  

When I finally got up and going, I was amazed by the fact that the tops were still in all the trees around the place. Lots of limbs, some of them largish, were plentiful, but the trees were all still there.  Fear, dark, and metal roofing magnify sounds, apparently.  I squished through the yard to take the dogs out, made it back to the couch, and was happily reading in my pjs when the pest control guy called to arrange a service appointment.

A shower and some company-acceptable clothing later, I was back on the couch reading.  I put on a playlist of music, and the hours just disappeared.  I am rereading the Harry Dresden books, and I finished one, got to the midpoint of one of the others.  I'm now on book five, I think.  Only eight more left.... Yeah.  This is a bit more ambitious than a quick Harry Potter tour.

And so, I'm sort of in suspended animation here.  I toil not, neither do I spin.  I can only do probably about one more day of this, and then I'll have to get out of the house.  Restlessness will close over me like a big fist.  Maybe a camera adventure is in order if this weather will quit trying to blow me away.  

Christmas Eve

Even though it's been a day off, it's been kind of a long one.  I did a million loads of laundry, cleaned the house to what I'd call the "moderate" level for Christmas brunch tomorrow, wrapped presents, put away the inevitable piles of junk that accumulate on the flat surfaces during school.

I took lots of time today, though, for things that weren't required.  I read a book and a half.  I am rereading the Harry Dresden books, trying to clarify some things in my mind that are fuzzy after reading book 13.  (heh.  imagine that.  thirteen books over ten years and some things are "fuzzy.")

I took my hammock outside.  Except for the cursed gnats, it was beautiful weather.  The birds were coming to my freshly-filled feeders.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky.  The sun was that perfect winter light.

I'm here now on the couch with all the lights off except the tree.  That's the rather abstract iPhone-camera version of it above.  It won't be long now before it is time to take it down for another year, so I'm spending a little time just doing nothing but enjoying it.

The tired and a headache that has been hovering all day, probably due to the incoming storms predicted for us tomorrow, are catching up to me.  I am going to stay here a little longer, and then I'll call it a night.  Tomorrow, after all, is Christmas Day, and I'll be cooking and cleaning quite a bit.

I can't help remembering all those Christmas Eves when I was little and so excited to see what Santa had brought.  Now that I'm older, it has brought a different type of anticipation, calmer, less focused on "stuff."  I look forward to tomorrow because my family will be together.  Because I'll get to see if Mom and Dad like what I got them.  It's not the same as it used to be, but somehow it's just as good.

Off to enjoy my tree.  I hope wherever you are, you're enjoying yours, too.

It Will Be Mine

(well, as of early March, anyway)

So, today I gave in and went to joshritter.com and pre-ordered The Beast in Its Tracks.  I know there are MONTHS between me and the release date, and I was really only sort of looking around, but then I saw the bundle that has this in it.  That was the deal-clincher.

Does this pattern look familiar to you?  Like, oh, say, something you might have seen me blog about before?  I can't get over how much stuff I like Josh Ritter winds up having in his work/art/etc.  Ancient Egypt.  Hamlet.  The greek/evil eye.  Frankenstein (I will always believe that "Another New World" ties back to Robert Walton until I'm told otherwise.)

I like the song I've heard from the new album, the released single.  I can't believe I won't love the whole thing.  I had to laugh today when I saw on Twitter than Neil Gaiman had gotten an advance copy and didn't have anything to play it on wherever it is that he was.  I like the idea of those two being friends, though.  I have often wondered if they knew each other before the WITS show.  Clearly now they do.  I should think that the potential for fabulous cross-pollination between those two storytellers is mind-boggling.

I am just a simple teacher-person, though.  No titan of creativity am I.  Therefore, I don't get an advance copy.  Sigh.  That's okay.  My duly pre-ordered one should get here right before my Spring Break trip, and I will be wearing that shirt through Italy.  I'll put it with my greek eye stuff that I got from Brazil.  The music can keep me company through the flight.  It's one more thing I can look forward to with my countdown timer to Italy, I guess.

There were lots of other things on the website I wanted.  He has a poster with Anubis playing the guitar.  If that doesn't run out, I will get one of those for my classroom.  It makes me happy.  I can justify having it up all the time because of Mythology.  They also had a zip-front hoodie for "The Curse."  I don't wear a lot of hoodies, but this one made me grin.  If I can free up money in a month or so, I might get that for my birthday present to myself.

For lots of reasons, March can't get here fast enough.  I can't wait until I open my mailbox and find my bundle.  Good music, cool design, last minute packing for a place I've always wanted to go.  Can't beat that with a stick.

Eggnog and Dog Toys

Today, I felt less than wonderful.  I don't know why.  I think perhaps the tiredness from the end of school has finally caught up with me.  Well, to be more precise, I think my body has finally decided it's safe to acknowledge the tiredness.  I have that "teacher constitution" which allows my body to pull off mighty feats of self-deception until it knows I don't have to get up and go.  Then it falls into a heap.

I read part of the morning, half-dozing the whole time, and around lunch, I finally decided to give up and take a nap.  The bed could not have been more inviting if I'd planned it.  The sun was streaming in the windows and making it a perfect paradise.  Roux came and snuggled in next to me, and I was unconscious just like that.

When I got up, I knew Wal-Mart was in my immediate future.  A lack of dog food, me food, and staples like toilet tissue made it necessary.  I girded myself mentally and drove over to Newton in my MSU sweats, setting a new all-time low for my Wal-Marting.  Unless I at some point go in my pajamas (like about half the other people I saw today...and not just kids, either...WTF?), I was as "casual" as I've ever been.  I felt bad about it, too, until I noticed all the other sweats and pjs.  Tis the season, I guess.  As long as I didn't make "People of WalMart," I'm okay.

I picked up all the stuff on my iPhone list (oh, how I love that simple little app), and other things also caught me attention, too.  As I was getting ingredients for Christmas brunch, I grabbed a jug of eggnog from the dairy case.  I love eggnog even though I know it isn't particularly healthy.  It's like a smoothie or a milkshake, thick and cold and wonderful.  It's an integral part of the holidays for me.

I also stopped to look at dog toys when I was getting the 487 types of dog supplies required to keep the pit and the Pyr running.  I found one they can both hold and use to sling each other around the living room, and I put it in the cart, too.  It's their "Chrimma" present.  Yes.  I am one of THOSE people.  I buy Christmas toys for my dogs.  Sue me.

It must also be said that I assembled a set of pajamas for myself from some blue and white flannel pj pants and a Captain America shirt.  It's sad how eager I am to go put on my Captain America pjs.  Ah, well.  The little things, right?

I came home, went through the hated solitary unpacking of the car, and came in to make dinner.  I cooked the steak and baked potato I'd bought during the trip of joy earlier and sat down to watch a movie. I'm going to finish it off with more reading. It's just a simple day-in-the-life, neither good nor bad.

On the Eve of the Apocalypse

“Teach us...... that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes.”
~ Jane Austen

_______________________

My running thought off and on throughout the day as this task or that has arisen has been the little joke, "Oh, well, I better take care of that.  The world is ending tomorrow."

And maybe that's not really as funny as I think it is.

I will probably still laugh, though.  Until I see the first zombie or the first ancient Mayan whatever, I will probably still laugh.

As I was driving home this afternoon, I started thinking about it (too much.  as usual.), really turning it over in my mind.  What if the world were ending tomorrow?  I mean, okay, so I'm not expecting the dead to walk or a black hole to suck us into a void or a magic Mayan planet to appear (don't know what I'm talking about?  okay.  so that might not be a remarkable event, but still  CLICK HERE.)  However, if the past little while here on this spinning ball has taught us nothing else, it should have reinforced the idea that our own personal apocalypse can come at any moment brought to us by the impersonal hand of the weather or the trembling insane rage of a gunman.

So maybe we need to stop joking about it and start acting on it.

I don't mean we need to join the survivalists up in Washington state or Colorado.  I am pretty sure we will need neither tanks nor bunkers.  I don't advocate joining the massive run on bottled water and toilet tissue that is undoubtedly happening at a Wal-Mart near you.  What I'm talking about is both a lot simpler and a lot more personally costly.

Maybe we need to make sure that we don't leave business undone, things unsaid.  We never know when we will put somebody on a bus, wave goodbye to a friend, end a phone call, walk away from a meeting and it be the last time.

I'm not saying we need to "live scared," go sit on a hillside and wait for the end, or pursue other desperate acts.  I'm just saying that we need to be aware in the sweetest and best of all the possible ways that we are finite.  I do not believe we are the worse for that fact, but we do have an ending ahead somewhere, and like a person on a short vacation in a place they've always wanted to visit, we need to be sure we waste nothing of it.

I have a bracelet with the quote from Jane Austen you read at the top on it.  That, of course, is just her elegant restatement of Psalm 90:12, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom."  Both quotes carry the same idea, understanding that time is passing makes it, like all other limited commodities, more valuable, less likely to be wasted thoughtlessly.  Chris Rice sings it well, too, "Teach us to count the days / Teach us to make the days count / Lead us in better ways / Somehow our souls forgot / Life means so much...."

Life, then, is too short, too easily ended, to waste on crap and neglect.  If you are with somebody who you KNOW isn't a good fit or who makes you actively unhappy, get away.  If you are doing something that hurts you and that you hate, quit.  If you have something good and true, hold onto it.  If you manage to find love, grow it.  Protect it.  Maybe Hamlet (of COURSE he showed up.  can I write a full blog without him?  no....) had it right when he said, " If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all."  We can't know when our own personal "Exit," potentially of course "pursued by a bear" is going to get here.  We can, however, make sure we don't throw away the beauty and the good that waits for us before that time.

In that spirit, I just want to take a minute before the zombies and the ghost planet get here to do something I ought to do more often.  If you're my friend, and you're reading this, then know that I love you and value you.  Clip, Lord of Trees, L (my cousin/brother), T (my fellow daisy farmer), Faustus, all you other stealthy family and friends and former students who creep in cat-footed and leave without me knowing, I wish you truly well and most genuinely happy.

It's something that it shouldn't take a theoretical infestation of the undead or astronomic pyrotechnics to say.  I hope you know it no matter how bad I am at "numbering [my] days."

Just Another Crap Tuesday

It had already been a bad day when it happened.  I was on the interstate headed home trying to outrun the things that made me sad, trying to let the music and the movement cheer me.  I saw something appear suddenly on the edge of the the road.  I started slowing, and a dog ran across both lanes in front of me.  I was scared enough, but I was happy the dog was across and safe.

Then the other one ran out to follow.

I managed to dodge it, but it got scared and couldn't decide between the safety of where it had come from and the place where its friend was.  I saw it go under the 18-wheeler behind me.

And then I just screamed.

I managed to get to an exit where there's a gas station I go to fairly often, and I pulled off because I was crying too hard to see.  It was one of the worst things I have ever seen.  The poor creature was young, alone, and scared.

When I made it home, I came in and grabbed my dogs and just held them.  They are all rescues.  It could have been them easily at different points in their lives, those times when they were uncared-for, unprotected, unloved.  I wish that the dog from today had a family that took care of it.  To think that anything dying without love is too much, even for a Tuesday.

Again

The first twinges of a migraine hit me yesterday during our faculty meeting after school.  I ignored them, not wanting to take a Maxalt, but I did pack up my stuff and come on home.  By the time I got here, my head was starting to throb.

Stupidly, I continued to put off the inevitable.  Maxalt lately has made me extremely loopy when I take it, so I kept thinking, "This will clear up on its own."  Like it ever does.

When I finally took the Maxalt, it hit me as expected, badly, and I lay on the couch dreaming and drifting until Mom came down to check on me around 6:30 and bring me some gumbo she'd made.  This was when it happened.

I was so cold.  I was bundled up under an afghan, staring up at the Christmas tree lights when suddenly and just for a moment, I saw something...dangling...off the tree topper.  It was like a little shadow thing doing a King Kong/Empire State impression.  Just like the time in the cafeteria, I knew it wasn't real, couldn't be real, but it was every bit as disturbing as that experience had been.

I went to bed almost immediately after I ate, and this morning, everything seems to have reset inside my head.  Only the day as it goes by can show that for sure.   These headaches have started scaring me with their bizarre side effects.  While the doctor has said some people have things like this every single time, I really don't think I can stand to be one of them.

A Good Weekend

Of course there were other things I was supposed to be doing.  Duh.  When is there ever not?

I took the weekend for myself.  I had to.  After the headsplitter of last Thursday and the unexpected fallout from that on Friday, I needed something that was totally mine.

So, I read.  A lot.  I read two whole books this weekend, including the new Harry Dresden, Cold Days, by Jim Butcher.  Oh, it was wonderful.  I have about a hundred highlights in it.  Butcher is so freaking funny.  I would love to know him personally.  I think we might get along.

I also soaked myself in Nina Simone this weekend.  She will probably get a whole post unto herself soon.  I have liked the little bits of her that I have had forever.  I have had an album of hers in my download list for almost as long, but for some reason I kept putting off buying it.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  She is fan-damn-tastic.  Her voice joins Ella Fitzgerald's and Billie Holiday's in the realm of my favorites.  She can make you feel just by her intonation.  Add to that her classically-trained piano, and her music is beautiful.  Lethal.  Addictive.  Perfect.

I made the ornament wreath I've had planned for awhile.  I'm mostly satisfied with how it came out.  It felt good just to do it, whether it was perfect or not.  It feels good to have things completed instead of forever sitting around in piles waiting and making me feel guilty.

Right now, I'm going to finish the weekend out with a movie.  Since I'm wanting to go see The Hobbit (argh.  if only it weren't in 3-D.  I dread that.), I will probably watch one of the LotR movies.  I haven't seen the first one in a long time, and only bits and pieces of any of them on TBS/TNT in a while.  It will be good to watch them again.

Tomorrow will be a plunge back into the madhouse, but it's the last plunge for awhile if I can just make it through.  Surely I've had enough good to fortify me.  (here's hoping, anyway....)

Quiet Time

I'm sitting here in my darkened living room.  The only light comes from my netbook screen and the  Christmas tree.  The dogs have stopped their random barking, and just now, I'm not listening to any music.  It's quiet and peaceful.

The tree makes me happy.  It's simple this year, lots of big, brightly-colored lights and my collection of vintage Shiny Brite mercury glass ornaments most of its adornment.  The only thing not glass on the tree is the red oval with one of Walter Anderson's angels carved in it that is at the top of the tree.  Around the ugly but necessary green plastic stand I have wrapped a red sparkly tree skirt I found at Big Lots.  The whole effect is very me, the new (LED bulbs) with the old (Shiny Brites at least as old as I, in many cases older), the sparkle and sheen.

It rests me just to look at it.  I haven't done a lot of "Christmasing" here at home this year.  I have kept it to the tree, which only got its ornaments today, a wreath of Christmas ornaments I made to see if I could and which I just found out is too large to put on my door behind the storm door, and the creche my grandfather made with its three little fragile Japanese ceramic figures.  I have huge collections of old world Santas and nativities that I have been adding to for years, but this year, I just can't stand the thought of taking them all out and then having to pack them all back up again in a few days.  The simplicity of the few pieces I have now is nice.

It's late, and I really should be trying to get in bed.  I can't want to, though.  Going to bed early on a weekend night seems like a kind of defeat somehow, like precious time thrown away.  When I should be trying to recharge, I'm watching one more episode, browsing one more page, reading one more chapter, writing one more entry, sitting just five more minutes in the multicolored glow of the tree....

Maybe, though, there's a kind of rest in this as well.  Oh, in just a few moments, the weariness will overrun me, and I'll give up, go push a cat or two off my side of the bed, and call it a night.  In the meantime, however, I'm going to enjoy this quiet time.  It's a rare thing.

Monsters

What have we become? 
In a world degenerating 
What have we become? 

Speak your mind, look out for yourself 
The answer to it all is a life of wealth 
Grab all you can cause you live just once 
You got the right to do whatever you want 

~ "What Have We Become" - DC Talk


Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

~ "The Second Coming" - W.B. Yeats

__________________________________

(Be warned.  This will not be especially coherent.)

I didn't know anything about Sandy Hook until my planning period.  I had felt my phone buzzing in my pocket all day from incoming emails, but I thought they were just the usual flurry of IFFT actions and holiday ads.  When I saw how many of them were from the CNN Alert service, I knew something dreadful had occurred.  Nothing, however, nothing at all ever could have prepared me for what was in those mails.

Everybody knows the story by now.  I won't retell it here, especially since just right now there are so very many gaps in it.  What I can't stop thinking about is how scared those poor children were and what it means for the ones who survived as well as for the families of the ones who are lost.

We take it for granted that some places are held commonly sacred, safe zones that nobody will harm.  We think of churches, hospitals, schools as places where the monsters cannot or will not go.  We take it for granted that some people, the very young, the very old, pregnant women, are not to be pulled into the violence that seems to surround us on all sides now.  I'm not sure how wise it is for us to do this, but I think maybe it's necessary.  We have to keep believing that some things are valuable, are (dare I say it?) holy, because if we don't, then the very last of the good is gone and the monsters have won.  We have to trust someone, some place, because if we don't, I'm not sure we can stay sane.

No child should ever know fear in a school.  I know that the all-pervasive culture of bullying and, for lack of a better term, hatefulness is deeply ingrained in the life of elementary and secondary students.  I know, too, that some children fear their classmates and that there are situations that make this completely and totally justifiable.  What happens to us as a world, though, when the thing they have to fear is not a cutting comment but rather the end of their lives?  We're lost.  We're so lost when this happens that I am not sure we can be found.

I am no parent, but I am a teacher.  I pray to God that I never, ever know what it's like to have a shooter in my building, to be in lockdown waiting to see if my door handle is the one that is going to turn, to hear my students or my colleagues in fear and in pain.  Still, I think every teacher in every school has probably felt that specter of fear run its icy finger down his or her spine from time to time, has thought about what s/he would do if the horror came to him/her.

I don't want to get on any high and unsteady soapbox and point fingers.  I know so many people will be doing that as soon as all the tears dry.  To be honest, I don't even know where to point the fingers.  All I can do right now is cry and pray:  pray for the grieving, pray for the injured and the broken, pray for the lost.  And by that, of course, I am so horribly and terribly afraid that I mean all of us....

That Song...

(for F, should he ever read it)

So there's this Christmas song by Bob Dylan called "Must Be Santa."  I got a compilation album with a bunch of stuff on it, and I saw that one and thought, "Wow.  Bob Dylan does Christmas.  Okay."  

I did not at that time understand the profound turn for the holiday weird my life was going to take.

I think I'll let you listen to it for yourself.  You can click above and see the video and everything.  And really, without the video, you're just not getting the full effect.  It's like a cross between National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Animal House.  Just be warned.  IT WILL HAUNT YOU.  As in, you'll be humming in the shower as you are washing your hair or in the laundry room while you're folding clothes, and suddenly you will realize.....IT'S THAT SONG.  And so it will be every time your brain goes on idle even momentarily.  Apparently for the rest. of. your. life.

As if that weren't enough, I also have the image of Bob from this video cavorting in my head like an evil Tom Petty in his parade of hats.  And you KNOW it had to go somewhere scary for me to say "an evil Tom Petty."  I mean, consider what that entails for a moment.

So, at your own risk and in your own time, if you dare, test the waters and wade in.  Just be aware that you're going to be grading papers or chopping tomatoes and finding yourself chanting, "Dasher/Dancer/Prancer/Vixen/Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon....Must be Santa, Must be Santa, Santa Claus...." like some devotee of a cult.

Maybe there's a 12-step to break the cycle.  

Long Days, Tired Days

The past two days have been wearying.  Neither day did I get home before 7:00.  Both days, I ate bites of lunch between dealing with student issues and makeup work.

Yesterday, every piece of technology that could rebel did.  I think the devices coordinate these little coups at night while I'm gone.  Even the iPad was in on it.  I would try to type in a password, and it would type all sorts of gibberish all by itself.  It was as though it was trying to communicate with me and doing a really bad job.

Of course, as is ALWAYS the case, when our tech guy came to look at it, it magically had no problems.  Next time, I'm going to film the behavior with my iPhone so I won't feel like a freaking nut job when some exotic oddity arises in my equipment.

Today, I fought printers.  And printers.  And my MOBI.  And printers....  Then I graded until 6:00 when I left to go get 100 copies of 1984 from Books a Million.  While it's cool that I now have 100 copies of 1984 in the back of my car, the hour it took to get that accomplished was sort of the icing on a big crap cake.

Tomorrow promises to be another replay of today.  Grading.  Emergencies. A hurried lunch.  No moment for myself without someone who needs me.  A cold, dark parking lot waiting for me at the end of it.  I'm just about worn down to nothing.  I need the holiday to get here.  That may be selfish, but it's just  the truth.

So TONIGHT, I'm Going to...

(a list)

• lock my freakin' cat out of my bedroom - I have a knifing pain in my back that keeps me from being able even to twist my torso to look behind me.  This is courtesy of Dillon who has decided the BEST PLACE IN THE KNOWN WORLDS is curled on my pillow on top of my head.  I woke up ten times at least last night in agony from contorting to allow her to purr and knit, purr and knit.  

• go to bed early enough that even if I am rudely awakened, I can still not feel horrid the next day.

• mine my driveway so any "nighttime funseekers" are blown "at the moon," to quote my favorite Dane.  Last night's 12:30 shenanigans were sufficient to make me spooked for a long time.

• put on my fuzzy pjs.  BECAUSE HAVE YOU BEEN OUTSIDE?  It's getting cold.  This isn't a bad thing.  Fuzzy jammie weather is awesome.  Love me some fuzzy jammies.

• eat the rest of the key lime pie.  It's been waiting patiently.  I think it deserves my undivided attention. 

• pray this "disturbance in the Force" in my head doesn't turn into a full-fledged migraine.  Because that would suck.  A lot.  

• watch a musical, probably either Singin' in the Rain or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  Or, you know, something like Ferris Bueller or The Women.  In any case, it should be light, fluffy, and full of happiness.  Fuzzy jammies and key lime pie do not go with Citizen Kane (which I sat down to watch last night and just finally turned off because it was making me so totally depressed).  

• paint my toenails blue.  Or silver.  Or red glitter.  Or purple.  Or green.  Or.....

• plot and plan my first, honest-to-God, cold day of winter outfit for tomorrow.  It's probably an indicator of something quite sad that I'm so happy about the cold weather, but, well, there you have it.  The scarf/jacket/hat combination must be carefully considered....

I don't know what you're up to with your evening, but may it be every bit as satisfying to you as fuzzy jammies and pie.

Dear Josh Ritter

As if your songs weren't fabulous enough, you also named two of your albums with direct quotes from Hamlet and Horatio (So Runs the World Away and To the Yet Unknowing World).  I caught the Horatio quote last year as I taught the play.  I didn't catch the Hamlet one until this year's adventures in education.  Nicely done, sir.  Nicely done.

CrazyTown

I don't know what's going on lately in the town I work in, but I wish someone would find a way to put an end to it.  Random people are getting shot and injured or killed; robberies for nothing are happening.  People are getting more and more afraid.  Sales of police-strength mace and weapons are going up. I fear that soon, many, many people are going to be very, very dead, and it may not be any of the people who started the problem in the first place.

Every day, it seems, brings a new horror in the newspaper.  The town I'm talking about is no major metropolitan area.  There are fewer than 100,000 people in it.  It should not be possible that suddenly, everyone walks in fear once the sun goes down, that everyone looks at every person they see in the parking lot as a potential assailant.  A hint of panic has begun to taint the air at a time when people should be gathering with friends, exchanging gifts, thinking with love for all mankind.

Innocent people, as always, are the ones who are being pulled in and made to pay for the actions of others committed in arrogance and hate:  a mother and her babe-in-arms, a couple who stopped because they thought someone needed help, a man who spent his life trying to make sure there was equality for all.  The last is an irony so poignant that it tears at the soul.  He put his life on the line to make sure life could be better, and he's shot by thugs in hoodies for....nothing.  Because somebody refused to cower before them.  Because they think life is cheap, not understanding that life is all the more precious because it can be so easily ended.  Because they happened to have a weapon in their hands, and they've come to believe that this somehow makes them strong and right. They're throwing away their own lives and trying to throw away his with both hands as fast as they can.

It makes me grieve because I have the sick feeling that at least some of the shooters will wind up being familiar faces or names.  It's happened in the past.  It's an aspect of teaching in an urban setting that probably isn't covered in education classes.  It also makes me extremely angry.  What right have these to make everyone walk in fear?  What right have they to believe it is okay to spread their violence wholesale and make what should be a season of peace and hope into an active war zone?

Somebody needs to do something about this.  Someone with right, power, and authority.  It's time for those who can and should put an end to it to stop waiting, fiddling around, turning a semi-blind eye.  It's not a "community problem."  It's an all-of-us problem.  If someone with legal right and power doesn't find a way to end it soon, it doesn't take a genius to see that individuals are going to try to do it instead.  If that happens, well, I think Shakespeare had a quote for that in Julius Caesar, "Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war...."  We all know how those Shakespearean tragedies end, don't we?  With a pile of corpses and shattered potential.

Fantasy Christmas List

I have a whole saga to tell about my recent absence, but as of this moment, I want to focus on some happy stuff.  Hence...

If I could have ANYTHING I wanted for Christmas, I would ask for:

• I just saw a documentary on the Doc Channel called The Bus Movie.  It was fantastic.  I have always liked the look and style of the VW microbus (me and millions of people, right?), but after seeing the documentary, I really want one.  I have this insane dream about driving across country, stopping at all the interesting places and the places that interest me (not always the same), and now that dream involves a VW bus.

• An Alessi Nativity - This may not be your particular cup of tea, but there is something so charming to me about this set.  The pieces that go with it, angels, shepherds, Magi, are all also wonderful.  It isn't traditional, but it is wonderful in its cheery colors and joy.

• A cartouche necklace.  Tacky?  Maybe.  But I've been fascinated by Egypt forever.  When we were little, my cousin L and I spent time learning how to write simple messages in (likely highly suspect) hieroglyphs.  I just did a lesson today with my classes about the grammar of hieroglyphic writing.  Someday, I hope to go to Egypt and see the real thing for myself in its native environment.  Until then, this would be very neat.

Only three things right now.  I might come up with some others later on.  I know you'll be on the edge of your seat waiting.

Migraine Sick

It's come to be almost predictable.  The weather goes haywire and so does my head.

I got sick today and had to come home.  I took a Maxalt at the end of second period, drifted through third barely clinging to functionality, and then I made good my escape.

As I lay drifting once I got home, one image kept flashing in my head over and over.  I read somewhere that having migraines makes you more likely to keep having more.  The analogy used was that it is like water wearing away a channel; the more that passes through it, the deeper the channel grows.  I kept picturing rolling waves of blue-white electricity buzzing through my brain.  It was not a comforting vision.

I slept for several hours, but I still feel the after-effects.  I got up, ate something, am watching The King's Speech.  I hope everything in the weather patterns of my head and the sky are calmer tomorrow.

Chimneyville 2012

I was a day late getting there, but I did make it at last.  Chimneyville is one of the two big craft/art events I look forward to every year.  I always have the best time with my friend and with the artists who come to show there.  This year was no exception.

I went on a mission.  I knew I wanted some very specific things, a piece from Michael Hayman who creates silver jewelry with Celtic and Norse motifs; an owl from Peter Rose who is probably one of my two favorite US potters; a dragon from Sam Clark, the other favorite; and another pen or something from Cadman and Cummings Studios, makers of all sorts of gorgeous writing instruments.  Anything else would just be gravy, but I had been thinking about these pieces for a long time.

I also wanted to find things related to mythology since I am VERY much on a kick with that right now, my natural and long-standing interest in all the stories and legends having been pushed into overdrive by the teaching of the course.  I thought my chances of finding interesting objects with their beginnings in myth might be better there than anywhere else.

The first piece I found proved me right.  A craftsman from Texas had wonderful metal creatures on sale.  I loved them all, cute, creative, and detailed as they were, but the small white Pegasus was perfect.  I reached, mostly impolitely, past a woman who was standing and staring aimlessly at the tree and plucked it up for my own.

Then it was off through the aisles.  It never ceases to amaze me what wonderful stuff people bring and how much diversity there is to the offerings.  Some people are there every year.  Some were newcomers.

Finally, though, my friend and I wandered onto an aisle that had Cadman and Cummings on it.  I looked at their selection, and my eye was caught by a beautiful bright red sketch pencil.  If you're not familiar with that concept, they have a very large lead in them, and the comfortably bulky pencil body allows for long use without as much hand fatigue.  I am not an artist, but I do sketch sometimes.  I have been wanting one of these for a long time, but the only ones I ever saw were from Levenger and they were bright florescent yellow.  Not for me.  This one has a body of turned red acrylic.  It has that same subtle sparkle that you might see in a bowling ball (which makes sense since they're both of the same material).  I used it as soon as I got home, and it is an absolute pleasure to write and draw with.  Piece one on my list accomplished.

The second piece came when we finally found Peter Rose.  Nobody was where they usually are this year.  I had almost given up finding him when we turned up a row and I saw his distinctive creatures peeking out from behind a divider.  As always, I sort of wanted everything.  It is so hard to choose between all the lovely things he has.  He had more ravens this year, some of them large and grand, some of them small enough to hold with one hand.  I love them.  No matter how many of them I have, they make me happy every time I see them.

He also had a variety of other things, and I tried to focus on the owls.  I have been saying now for about three years that I was going to get one of his owls for the collection I have at school.  Each year, some other piece has seduced me.  This year, I forced myself to look at other things before gravitating back to the ravens, and something else snagged me.  It was a hawk with a gorgeous Bizen-ish/Tokoname-ish red-brown glaze to it.  While the glaze was pure Japan, the shape was almost Egyptian, and all I could think of was "Horus."  The markings on the wings look almost like hieroglyphs.  When I picked it up and ran my fingers over its beautiful beak, I knew I had to have it.  Two other things should have told me I was looking for a hawk today, the fact that I'm teaching Ancient Egyptian mythology tomorrow and the fact that as I drove to Jackson today, a lovely hawk sat on the powerline right over the interstate and watched me go past.

One of the reasons I love so much to go to this show is perfectly exemplified in the buying of my hawk.  The artists like to talk to the people who come to see them.  It's so nice to be able to speak to such talented people.  Peter Rose is always fantastic.  I look forward to going by his booth every year as much for the conversation as for the art.  This year was no different.  He actually gave me a little raven to take with me when I was leaving.  I was overwhelmed.  It was so incredibly kind of him to do that. That little raven will join its brother from last year in my classroom, and now I shall have Huginn and Muninn together.

That left only two things on my list.  I had been by Michael Hayman's booth earlier, but I wanted to walk around and think about the piece I'd seen there and liked.  Before I arrived, I had been thinking about his pendant of Mjollnir, remembering it as something I might like to have.  I already have two pendants by him and a pair of raven earrings, but I had also been wanting something with Yggdrasil, the world tree, on it since I'd taught Norse mythology recently.  He had a pendant that has Yggdrasil with a tiny raven under it and a little acorn that dangles from the bottom.  Check, check, and check.  To me, even though the world tree is supposed to be an ash, the acorn stood for Ratatosk, the little squirrel who spends all day stirring up crap between the eagle at the top and the dragon gnawing the roots.  It was perfect.  After seeing everything, I still wanted it, so I went back and got it.  I'm wearing it now.  I'll wear it tomorrow.  It is exactly what I wanted.

Only one item on my list went undone.  (If you've been paying attention, you already know what this is.)  I had intended to get one of Sam Clark's reading dragons today.  I had the money and everything.  What I wound up without, however, was Sam Clark.  He has been at every single Chimneyville I've ever been to, and he, like Peter Rose, is one of the artists I most look forward to seeing and talking with.  No joy this year.  I hope nothing bad has kept him out of the festival and that he will return next year.  It just wasn't the same without him and his smiling, coffee-drinking frogs and wise, sly, grinning dragons.

All in all, it was a great day.  I have new things that will make me happy each time I look at them or wear them, useful things, lovely things.  I will remember the people I talked to, the time with my best friend.  Every year I come away from Chimneyville feeling refreshed and inspired.  I hope that maybe the people who exhibit there do, too, somehow despite the long hours sitting and the distance and difficulty of travel.  I'd hate to think they got nothing but money, as nice as it is, from it when those of us who go to see get so very much more than the tangible.

Modern-Day Athena

In my Mythology class, the students had to do an assignment modernizing three gods of their choice from the Greco-Roman or Norse pantheons.  I offered them a model taken from a resource I have where a writer looked at the aspects of the Greek gods and then reinterpreted them for "modern living."  I wanted to read through one of the examples with the class, and so I naturally picked Athena since of the Greek gods, she's probably my favorite.

I felt like somebody had written all about my life instead of this character from myth.  No, I didn't spring fully-formed and armored from my father's head, and the last time I checked, I wasn't able to get any of that ambrosia upon demand, but so much of the rest of it, the personality part of it was spot-on that I felt suddenly conspicuous as I read it.

I don't have a copy in front of me, so I'm quoting from memory, always dangerous and something I may well go back and fix when I get the time.  It said something to the effect of "Athena is capable of sustaining deep, long-term platonic friendships with men" and went on to imply that if she were seen in a restaurant with a guy holding her hand and looking misty-eyed, it was probably because he was telling her about his latest failed whatever.  Damn.  Dead-on.  Dead.  On.  The writer was taking this from Athena's never-ending service as patron/protector to heroes such as Perseus, Jason, and of course, Odysseus.  I know what that's like, to be the friend and confidante all the time.  That sort of is my life.  It's not a bad thing, but occasionally it does get old.  Maybe it did to Athena, too....

The next part was the part that really zapped me though, talking as it did about the need for the "modern day Athena" to get out of her head and into her heart, stop overthinking and overanalyzing  when it comes to relationships.  I felt like saying, "Look.  If you're going to get  this personal and dredge up all my personality flaws, at least quit calling me Athena, okay?"

There was more, too....

Sigh.  Isn't it funny how archetypes keep lasting because they apply to the real world?  I am NOT Athena.  (Have to state that so you don't think I'm...well...crazy.  Okay.  Crazier than usual.  I won't start walking around with one of my owls perched on my shoulder and jabbing things with a pointy stick.  Probably.)  I'm no more divine or goddess-ish than the next woman you meet, but somehow this figure from so long ago and I have the same freaking problems.  And unlike her, I don't get a cool helmet (me and the hats.  again.) or a Medusa-head-adorned shield to deflect the crap I come in contact with.  Boo that.